A couple weeks ago, the latest “major” MacOS upgrade was released. This is a pretty major update, and actually ticked it from the 10.x train, to 11.0.
Of course, I waited until there was the first point release, and there were a couple of programs that I use heavily that needed to be updated. Once 11.0.1 was released, and the software that warned me was rev’d, I felt I was ready.
Boy, was I wrong…
The upgrade went smoothly, no major issues. This is on my main machine, a Mac Mini with 32G ram, and a 6 core i5 CPU that I bought in 2019. A pretty snappy machine with a half a TB of main storage, and connected to my recently replaces (under warranty) Drobo 5D.
I was going around and using it just fine, until I realized that the Drobo wasn’t mounted.
Loaded up the Drobo Dashboard, and sure enough, it is there, and healthy, but it wasn’t on the desktop.
Grrrr
Then I loaded DiskUtility, and it appears there, but it is listed as “Uninitialized”
Fuck. Is my data still there? Will I be able to get it off? How screwed am I? (Fortunately, I still have my trusty vintage 2015 MacBook Pro 13″ that is still running Catalina so a quick nip over there proved that my data was intact. Phew)
Off to Google, and alas, somewhere in the train of betas of Big Sur, the kernel drivers were broken (it appears that Apple changed the behavior of Thunderbolt) and the behavior I see was “normal.” A lot of bitching about Drobo being a bad citizen and not updating their software in a timely fashion.
So I used the Drobo dashboard app to power down the drive, and waited for an update.
Fast forward to today, and I load up the Drobo Dashboard app, and voila there is an update. 3.5.2 is installed, and after a reboot, and an approval in the security panel, another reboot, and my Drobo is back up and online.
This is cementing the need to find an alternative solution, a network attached storage. I am looking long and hard at a Synology box. Perhaps with my next bonus, I will start.
Of course, that will also mean that I need to get fast ethernet wired. I am looking at a MoCA coaxial network. My cable modem/router supports it, and three nodes (my office, my wife’s office, and her video editing workstation) will serve us well, reduce the strain on the WiFi, and allow all of us to use the Synology box to back up and store files to.
But that is a topic for another day. For now, I am back up, and happy.
